March 30, 2016

Plenitude by Juliet Schor

Hypocrisy alert: It should be noted that this author has a huge ecological footprint due to extensive travel as well as having two children...

Selected excerpts:

... the business-as-usual [referred throughout the book as "BAU"] market will be relatively disadvantaged, because it is highly resource-intensive. [p.18]

To yield one ounce of gold, a mining company can excavate a hundred or more tons of earth. [p.43]

But in addition [to valuing natural capital], the plenitude approach argues that we need to rethink the scale of production, how knowledge is accessed, skill diffusion, the ownership of natural assets, and mechanisms for generating employment. [p.71]

In the McKinsey studies, the reigning assumption was to calculate emissions reductions without behavior change, which is deemed "difficult" to achieve. [p.86]

There's an ecovillage of a hundred homes in South London called Beddington Zero [note that residents still have a footprint of 1.7], operating since 2002, where many residents have managed to attain that goal [of one planet living]. They're aspiring to zero carbon, zero waste, and local sourcing of food, fibers, and products. [p.100]

Those in the vanguard of sustainability have found their purpose in helping to save the planet. But for the vast majority of us, ecological living is not the object of our passion. We will understand that it's necessary, and may enjoy it. But deep meaning is found elsewhere, in family, friends, personal creativity, religion, music and art, social justice, science, business, or helping others. [Note that all of these are dependent on healthy ecosystems.] [p.100]

[Frithjof] Bergmann's system had three components. First, radically cut hours in factories, to about twenty per week, in a bid to preserve jobs. Second, help under- and unemployed workers figure out their life's calling, that is, the type of work they most wanted to be doing, and support them to get going with it, irrespective of whether it would yield income. And third, promote a series of advanced or smart-technology methods for producing the basics of life without arduous labor. His term was high-tech self-providing. [p.118, for more see Bergmann's essay in The Consumer Society Reader or here.

We are circling back, and plenitude is a synthesis of the pre- and post modern. From the former, it borrows the vision of skilled artisans producing for their own use as well as for the market. It's a decentralized integrated production model with a less specialized division of labor compared with mass production. Total work hours are low (as they were in the precapitalist era), individuals retain more control over their time and labor, and work gives ample scope for creativity. From the postmodern period comes advanced technology and smart, ecologically parsimonious design. It's the perfect synthesis. Technology obviates the arduous and back-breaking labor of the preindustrial. Artisanal labor avoids the alienation of the modern factory and office. [p.127]

The next economic era needs to be devoted to restoring the capacity of the earth to support humans and other life forms. [p.158]

There's also a large sector of businesses [cooperatives, credit unions, etc.] that are not subject to the profit imperative on the account of their ownership structure. [p.171, My problem with these structures is that their payrolls support people who live highly consumptive lives. And the jobs are mostly boring. Picture tellers and cashiers.]

Vandana Shiva's Bija Vidyapeeth (Earth Citizenship) center in northern India combines an organic farm operating in community with nearby villages with courses taught by Indian and international sustainability leaders. [p.182]